The Arctic

Earthjustice is fighting to protect one of the Earth’s remaining wild landscapes by working to reduce black carbon, stop disruptive oil and gas drilling, and defend communities that rely on the Arctic landscape for sustenance.

Jeff Schultz / National Geographic Creative

After legal pressure from Earthjustice and the realization that it is too risky to drill for oil in the remote, stormy and icy Arctic seas, Shell abandoned its plans to drill for oil in the sensitive waters of America's Arctic waters in 2014.

THE ARCTIC IS GROUND ZERO FOR CLIMATE CHANGE.

Massive blocks of Arctic ice play an important role in regulating the planet’s climate. But rapid loss of Arctic ice due to climate change is leading to great shifts—temperatures are increasing, storms are intensifying and sea levels are rising as we move towards irreparable damage. Additionally, as the Arctic landscape changes, the wildlife and human communities that depend on its resources for survival are facing daunting and life-threatening challenges.

EARTHJUSTICE IS FIGHTING TO SAVE THE IRREPLACEABLE ARCTIC ECOSYSTEM BY:

STOPPING OIL AND GAS DRILLING with litigation that beats back unlawful attempts by oil and gas companies to unleash dangerous carbon emissions and turn one of the most productive ocean ecosystems in the world into an industrial drilling zone.

WE’RE PROTECTING THE ARCTIC FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS.

Earthjustice played a strategic role in advocating for a landmark program to reduce methane, black carbon and other pollutants. The plan was announced in February 2012 by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former EPA administrator Lisa Jackson, the United Nations Environment Programme, and leaders from five other nations. Earthjustice is one of the few civil society representatives in the newly formed “Climate and Clean Air Coalition”.

"Drilling in high-risk places like the freezing waters of the Arctic Ocean is a backwards-looking strategy when we need to look forward to meet energy needs and limit the effects of climate change.” – Trip Van Noppen, Earthjustice President

Spotlight Features

The Arctic is a thriving, diverse landscape filled with life. There is currently no offshore oil and gas development in America’s Arctic Ocean. And for the sake of our warming world and irreplaceable species, there should never be.

Watch a film about the thriving, diverse Arctic landscape, and the threats the region faces from industrialization and climate change. Produced by the acclaimed photographers Florian Schulz and Emil Herrera-Schulz.

Allowing reckless oil and gas development not only puts the fragile and irreplaceable Arctic Ocean at risk of devastating oil spills, but also threatens to worsen climate change, undermine national climate goals, and further stress the dramatically changing region.

The Arctic Ocean is a thriving, diverse ecosystem that provides habitat for some of the planet’s most iconic species, including polar bear bears, walrus and bowhead whales. Earthjustice is challenging Shell Oil’s plans for preventing and cleaning up an oil spill in the remote, icy waters of the Arctic Ocean.

Thanks to long-running Earthjustice litigation on behalf of Alaska Native and conservation groups, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently ordered the Department of the Interior to reconsider its decision to issue millions of acres of oil leases to companies like Shell and ConocoPhillips in the Chukchi Sea. In response, the government has suspended drilling there pending the review.

Following extensive advocacy by Earthjustice and allied groups, the EPA released a comprehensive, congressionally mandated report on the science of black carbon and climate change. The report points the way toward decisive action that must be taken to stop Arctic and planetary warming.